The Weskan plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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−3° on Nov. 13, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1893. Next is −2° in 1959.
Weskan’s center stands about 3,860 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 3,690 ft to 3,900 ft, a difference of 210 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Sunflower, about 4,040 ft, 11 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Loess (silt), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 4 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 35×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Silt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 14 mi of the line.
Sand, silt. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Arkose. Age: Miocene, 5.3 to 23 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 66 to 100 million years old. About 0.8 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Weskan reaches the Gulf of America by way of Eagletail Creek, the Smoky Hill, the Kansas, the Missouri and the Mississippi: about 2,200 river miles.
Lake on the way: Cedar Bluff Reservoir.
1,170 miles of the trip are on the Mississippi.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Weskan; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Weskan has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 17° in January. A normal year brings about 21 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 20 inches of water.
On November 14 Weskan normally reaches 55° and falls to 27°. The record high is 82°, in 1999; the record low −2°, in 1959. The most rain on this date, 0.48 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1893 at Sharon Springs, 12 miles east, 410 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
